A letter to... pop goddess Pink

Bookworm, film fan, telly addict. Special skill: I can recite the whole of Spaceballs.

Wednesday 30 August 2017

Dear Pink (or should I say P!nk)

YES. I couldn’t be happier that you finally seem to be getting the recognition you deserve for your music, your videos, your gravity defying ribbon work, and most of all for the message you’ve been quietly pushing all these years: of being yourself, of accepting who you are (and how hard that can be), of holding your nerve when the industry tries to force you into a cookie-cutter popstrel mould, of letting your talent speak for itself. (As well as your abs. Because those are abs that don’t quit.)

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Over the past couple of years, it’s become cool to talk about feminism, write songs about feminism, tell stories about feminism. Which isn’t inherently a bad thing, obviously, but like most trends it probably has a life cycle, so there will come a moment where it’s dropped from the pop culture conversation like last season’s sliders. But you Pink, YOU have been walking the walk and talking the talk right from the start of your career.

On Don’t Let Me Get Me, from your breakthrough Missundaztood album in 2001, you sang: “LA told me, "You'll be a pop star; All you have to change is everything you are” about how record company execs said that you needed to morph into a version of the at-the-time industry standard Britney Spears, in order to shift units. That even though you were a petite, blonde (OK, pink-blonde) white woman, you still weren’t petite, blonde or perky enough for that moment in the charts. That you weren’t ‘feminine’ (by which they clearly meant male gaze appeasing or acquiescent) enough. (That even the real Britney Spears ultimately couldn’t cope with the pressure of trying to be Britney Spears should tell us something about how ludicrous this is...)

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And despite your chart-toppers, your awards, and your awe-inspiring sellout live shows, you kept having to deal with the same old bullshit. Your VMAs speech brought the house down this weekend, while highlighting that even as one of the most successful recording artists around, you’re still judged because you don’t fit everyone’s idea of a what a female pop star (and by extension to us civilians, what a female full stop) *should* look like. And that dealing with this is not just TIRING but dangerous, especially when it’s being passed down to the next generation, and girls like your daughter think they are somehow wrong, because they look like this or like that, and think they won’t be accepted.

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“When people make fun of me, that’s what they use,” you said. “They say that I look like a boy, or that I'm too masculine, or I have too many opinions, or that my body’s too strong and I said to her, ‘Do you see me growing my hair?’ She said, ‘No, Momma.’ I said, ‘Do you see my changing my body?’ She said, ‘No, Momma.’ I said, ‘Do you see me selling out arenas all over the world?’ ‘Yes, Momma.’ "We don’t change. We take the gravel and the shell, and we make a pearl. We help other people to change, so that they can see more kinds of beauty.”

I’m glad the speech went viral, but I’m also glad that for the 17 years you’ve been on the music scene, you’ve proved that the best way to deal with the bullshit and the haters is to keep being yourself – and by releasing banger after absolute banger. I know you can do vulnerable (Family Portrait; Just Like a Pill; Who Knew), but your finest songs for me are the stompers that form the lynchpin of every remotely rousing playlist I’ve ever made. Get the Party Started, So What, Blow Me (One Last Kiss)… they’re the soundtrack for every woman who unashamedly Takes Up Space. I consider myself in that number. And for that, thank you.

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So with that in mind, I’ll let Raise Your Glass have the last word: after all, it’s the going out anthem of noisy, non-conforming women everywhere:

“We will never be never be, anything but loudAnd nitty gritty, dirty little freaks.”